animation

Living without any form of Ghostbusters for the last 11 years has been difficult. Even though Extreme Ghosbusters didn’t feature the original team, it was good enough for me just to know that some variety of Ghostbusters was still being created. I used to miss the episodes though because they aired at a period of time when I was taking advantage of sleeping past 9 or 10 AM on the weekends.
The Sexy Armpit hails The Extreme Ghostbusters episode “The Jersey Devil Made Me Do It.” It’s a mystery to me why their hasn’t been a big budget horror film based off the Jersey Devil, our local legend. There’s been a few movies (Last Broadcast, 13th Child, and Satan’s Playground) based off the Jersey Devil and loads of books and documentaries but not much else. Growing up in New Jersey, and knowing this creature haunted the Pine Barrens in South Jersey for hundreds of years, pretty much scared the crap out of us all when were were kids.
In this Extreme G.B episode, the gang is on a trip to a paranormal conference in Atlantic City. The crew mentions they are in the “middle of nowhere,” which is pretty much accurate since that’s how it feels when you’re riding through the Pine Barrens on your way to A.C. They paint South Jersey to pretty much be a hicksville and that’s basically what it is. If you’re visiting parts of South Jersey that aren’t located near the shore, it feels like the in-bred mutants from the movie Wrong Turn are going to come out of nowhere and try to eat you. The town they reference in the episode, “Hanover,” is actually in North Jersey. Even though the Ghostbusters were traveling from New York, they wouldn’t head all the way to Hanover to go all the way down to A.C. They probably just used the name for the episode.
And YES, there’s more to the Jersey Devil than just “the hockey team.” According to the episode the Jersey Devil is “…Jersey’s most famous native after that Springsteen kid…” Regardless of his fame they should’ve kept his appearance under wraps for a little while longer. We get to see what he looks like right from the start of the episode. How about a shot of his tail, then later a glimpse of his wing? The Devil’s appearance was freaky but it was too large and overly demonic looking. Also, most of the legends would describe him as unable to fly well, even though many accounts said that he did have wings. It wasn’t as if he was always in flight, he did more of a jump with some occasional wing flapping. Not that I know from experience or anything! The Jersey Devil in this episode looked more like a mix of a dragon and a pig or rhinoceros.
I haven’t watched this series since it first aired in ’97 and it just made me more anxious for a Ghostbusters series. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the PS3 game! Be sure to listen for a callback to Venkman in the first Ghostbusters movie: “Nice Shooting Tex.” Oh and in case you were wondering, Janine Melnitz wasn’t as hot in the Extreme Ghostbusters series.